Facebook In For Darker Times After A Year Filled With Controversies

In the world of tech, the word Facebook has become synonymous with controversy. And with good reason as well. The Mark Zuckerberg led company did not just have major charges and allegations levelled against them, but they admitted to them as well. Incidents such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal create trust issues between the company and its users. This, in turn, affects the user base drastically. And once an internet company loses its user base, it pretty much begins a countdown to its demise. And, by the looks of it, Facebook isn’t on a too dissimilar trend right now.

Facebook Usage in the US

A recent survey by Pew Research Center depicts that a lot of Americans are trying to avoid using Facebook as much as possible. More than half of Facebook users (54%) say that they have adjusted their privacy settings in the past 12 months. On the other hand, 42% of users are reported to have ‘taken a break’ from checking the Facebook for several weeks or more. While about 26% of users have also gone to the extent of deleting the app from their mobile.

In its most active age group, 18-29, the figures are drastic. As much as 44% of them claim to have deleted the app from their mobile in the past year. Things aren’t the same as the rest of the people still using the app either. Surprisingly, a huge 64% of users (ages 18-29 and 30-49) said to have adjusted their Facebook privacy settings. All these scandals and controversies have brought forth apprehensive feelings towards using Facebook extensively, with concerns regarding safety taking first priority.

Older Facebook users (aged 65 or more) are much less likely to delete their app or adjust their privacy settings in the past 12 months.

How Is It Going To Be Bad In the Long Run?

As the above DGraph shows, USA and Canada make for quite a large percentage of its user base alone. Now, if the above survey holds any good, it surely points to the direction that the company is going to lose quite a lot of active users from its parent country in the time to come. USA and Canada alone account for about 241 million monthly active users (data from the second quarter of 2018). But the above trend might not just be a cause of concern for Menlo Park based giant.

Although USA and Canada account for only 10% of their total active user base, they are responsible for $6,137 million of Facebook’s total earnings. That’s about 47% of Facebook’s total advertising revenue. The Asia-Pacific region, with all its huge user base of 894 million(40% of all its active users), accounts for only 17.6% of its total revenue. If Facebook goes on to lose almost half of its revenue because of their scandals, it’s going to be hit too hard for them to recover from.

What’s Next For Facebook?

Unless the people at Facebook decide to do something miraculous to win back the trust of its consumer base, which is highly unlikely, the tech giant might just be looking at a lot of challenging times ahead. The storms of the scandals have already hit the company where it hurts. Its just the devastation in the aftermath of this which is left to be seen. With all its strategic acquisitions in the past, Facebook might just pull through amidst all the crisis looming ahead. But the one thing which is for sure is that the company would be in unknown waters. What they do then will define what becomes of them in the future.